Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Where Have You Been?

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One of the big reasons I started this blog was for all the crazy, funny things my dogs do that bring a smile to my face or a laugh to my lips.

Sometimes it’s not easy to write a full blog post about it and sometimes I forget to share.

Some posts will be You Make Me Laugh and others will be You Make Me Smile, but they will all be the silly, sweet, funny things Sampson and Delilah do that help make crazy days just a little bit easier.

Sampson, when you wait up for the Mama to come home….

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you make me smile and feel oh so loved.

Friday night I had the pleasure of babysitting my grandchildren, Hubby had to work yesterday so he was in bed by the time I got home.

Delilah came sleepily out of the bedroom to greet me, but not Sampson.  I thought to myself, nice he doesn’t want to give up his spot on the bed.  Then I went into the living room.

There he was curled up on the couch waiting for me.  Hubby said he refused to go to bed without me.

God I love this dog!

Do your pets wait up for you when you’re out late?   Feel free to sound off in the comments.

Which Way Do We Go?

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Lately Sampson hasn’t been responding to me when we encounter people or other dogs on our walks.  This means his off-leash privileges have been revoked.  There are still some times and some days when I let him off leash a bit, but for the most part he’s on the long leash the same as Delilah.

I hear too many stories of dogs being lost or stolen and I’d rather not take the chance.  The kicker was the day he ran off, ignoring me completely and followed a couple of fellow hikers.

Sorry Sampson, that doesn’t fly with the Mama.

As those of you who walk more than one dog know, multiple dogs can prove to be challenging.  I’ve been searching for a leash coupler, but the places around me are out of stock on the 24″.  I have found it on-line, but the shipping options suck.  I think it’s ridiculous to pay $10 to ship a $5 leash, especially when I just shipped 95 calendars all for around $5 each.  One of my local stores is ordering a coupler for me but in the meantime, I walk two dogs and deal with the challenges.

What? You've never heard the tale of the two stubborn labs?

What? You’ve never heard the tale of the two stubborn labs?

 

At times (depending on my mood) this can be frustrating for me.  But not this day.  This day I chose to find the humor in it.  I took the photo and then I waited.  I waited to see who would move first.  And I thought, I can work with this.

Here’s where you come in.  Remember those Dogs of Blogville Calendars?

 

In order to get the cheapest price, I ordered a few extra.  So I thought, let’s do something fun and give one of those away.

Are you up for the challenge?

In the top photo, we have Sampson to the left side of the tree and Delilah to the right.  In the comments tell me who turned back to me first and which path we ended up taking.  Don’t worry, everyone who comments will go in the drawing for the calendar, you don’t need to have guessed correctly to win.

Random.org will choose the winner, which I’ll announce in next week’s Thanksgiving edition of This ‘N That Thursday. I’ll cut off entries Tuesday night at midnight EST.

Ready. Set. Which Way Do We Go?

Cocobanana

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Many moons ago I worked in a health food store called Natural Rythyms.  They sold vitamins and various other health aids.  There was a small sitting area where you could sit and enjoy a salad from the salad bar, or a sandwich from the limited menu.  They also sold baked goods.

It was a part-time job I took to help with the expense of my daughter’s wedding, so I only worked on Saturdays.  I didn’t wait a lot on customers, I was mostly in the back washing dishes, except for when I was baking muffins. Still I recall those days fondly because I got to spend time with one of my favorite people and I got to bake muffins.

Let me be clear.  I created my own muffins.  And it was all dependent upon what mood I was in and what ingredients were available.  But there was one thing you could be sure of, the muffins had chocolate chips in them.

It’s a wonderful feeling when a customer comes in and says, “Oh, I was hoping you had this muffin today, it’s my favorite.”  One of my muffin creations was Orange Chocolate Chip and it was very tasty.  I would think about it all week long, what type of muffin did I want to bake on Saturday?

So imagine my surprise yesterday as I was thinking of a treat for Tasty Tuesday when my mind began wandering back down the creative trail, but this time to dog treats.

Here’s what I came up with.  I’m calling it Cocobanana.

1 banana
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup cooked oatmeal
1 egg
2/3 cup oat flour
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
 

Before you start gather your ingredients.  The key point is to get the egg out of the fridge and let it sit for a few minutes, this will keep the cold egg from solidifying the coconut oil.

I’m not sure if you know this or not, but coconut oil is solid when the temperature is below 70°, you can buy coconut oil in the liquid form but it’s super pricey so I say, buy the solid and melt it.  My understanding is it’s not good to heat coconut oil in the microwave, so I put my coconut oil in a small glass dish and set that in another dish with hot water.  I changed the water a couple of times until the coconut oil was entirely melted.

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While the coconut oil is melting, break your banana up into about six pieces and add the egg, beat with an electric mixer until blended well.  My banana was a little too fresh so it wasn’t mixing well.  I mashed it with a potato masher and then worked it with the egg.  It’s okay to have small lumps of banana in this.  I then added the already cooked oatmeal and blended that as well, then the coconut oil.  Now mix in the oat flour.

At this point I added the shredded coconut but I used a spatula.  It was a fairly stiff dough, but not unworkable.

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I dropped by 1/2 spoonful onto my baking stone and cooked at 350° for about 25 minutes. I peeked in on them at about the 15 minute marker and they hadn’t moved at all so I pressed them down a bit with a fork.

My original intent was to add Carob chips to them which would have been perfect for both dogs and humans, but since my local grocery store didn’t have the chips, I used M&M’s in four of them.

Thoughts:  The cookies were browned on the bottom and the edges, but the inside was still moist.  Not raw but moist.  Jodi Chick thought the cooked oatmeal might have been too much or the banana might have been too fresh.  I’m going to try this recipe again, with dry oatmeal and an older banana.

Let’s see what Sampson and Delilah think.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Ooops, she was too fast and my finger got in the way of the camera. I’ll say that means the cookie is good.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Dammit!  He was too fast too!

Sampson and Delilah give these cookies a four paws up.  I’m not kidding, these suckers are tasty.  Anywhere I moved with that container of cookies, there were two dogs right on my tail!

So when I named the cookies naturally I got the tune of Copacabana stuck in my head.  I tried to work with that.

Her name was ‘Lilah, she is a labby
A purple collar on her neck and she doesn’t give a heck
She’ll work for kibbles, or any nibbles
But while she tries not to be a pest, she puts her Mama to the test
When Mama bakes there is a fest
These treats are sure the best
We call them coco, coco bananas!
 

You’re welcome for the recipe and the ear worm too.

This post is a tad bit long but tell me, have you tried baking for your pets yet?  How do you feel about it?

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